Polar Scientist Explains Peril of Thwaites

by Robert Hunziker / June 10th, 2022

 Rolling Stone

Ted Scambos, a polar scientist with 20 trips to Antarctica under his belt, makes a living trekking across glaciers, measuring the speed, thickness, and structure of ice. Dr. Scambos (University of Colorado/Boulder) recently penned an article: “Ice World: Antarctica’s Riskiest Glacier is Under Assault From Below and Losing Its Grip”. The Conversation, June 7, 2022.

Scambos is a lead principal investigator for the Science Coordination Office of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (SCO project). How many glaciers in the world have a team of scientists dedicated to an international collaborative research effort?

Answer: Thwaites is the single most dominate factor influencing the integrity (survival) of every coastal city in the world, and it is clearly at risk.

According to Scambos: “Antarctica is a continent comprising several large islands, one of them the size of Australia, under a 10,000-foot-thick layer of ice… Its glaciers have always been in motion, but beneath the ice, changes are taking place that are having profound effects on the future of the ice sheet – and on the future of coastal communities around the world.”

Significantly, the ice sheet was “nearly in balance as recently as the 1980s,” meaning annual snowfall replaced annual ice flows. As a result, the early ice research in Antarctica involved trying to find any kind of dramatic changes but with little success.

However, within only a couple of decades in the context of thousands of years of stability, everything suddenly changed. According to Scambos: “But now, as the surrounding air and ocean warm, areas of the Antarctic ice sheet that had been stable for thousands of years are breaking, thinning, melting, or in some case collapsing in a heap. As these edges of the ice react, they send a powerful reminder: If even a small part of the ice sheet were to completely crumble into the sea, the impact for the world’s coasts would be severe.”

West Antarctica’s Thwaites glacier is the continent’s prime candidate for a major collapse. In contrast to East Antarctica’s solid core of small mountain ranges underneath the ice bed, West Antarctica was once the ocean bottom. Its ice gets warmer and moves much faster. Only 120,000 years ago it was likely an open ocean and definitely 2 million years ago. Accordingly: “This is important because our climate today is fast approaching temperatures like those of a few million years ago… The realization that the West Antarctic ice sheet was gone in the past is the cause of great concern in the global warming era.” (Scambos)

Thwaites is the “big boy” glacier of West Antarctica. It is the widest glacier on the planet at 70 miles across. At issue, recent changes on the vast continent have been sudden and fast, much faster than ever expected. As for Thwaites in particular: The height of the surface has been dropping by up to three (3) feet each year. Huge cracks are forming at the coast, and ice now flows at over a mile per year. That flow rate has doubled since 1990.

The net result is a new era of geologically rapid ice flow officially underway for the 21st century. This is not a welcomed event. Nobody knows for sure how it will play out or how soon, but the risk is unfathomably scary, punctuated by the dispiriting fact that scientists’ models that predict future climate change are almost always late to the party. This makes it nearly impossible to plan for the next catastrophe, like Thwaites glacier.

As further explained by Scambos: Under the ice the geological structure of Thwaites is “a recipe for disaster.” Until only recently, Thwaites had not measurably changed since it was first mapped in the 1940s. All of that has changed now that global warming has intervened. It’s what’s happening hidden underneath that spooks scientists:  “Ocean water well above melting point is eroding the base of the ice.”

All of which impacts the entire structure. Mapping of Thwaites now exposes fractures and huge cracks along with the speed of flow all-in suggesting the monster may ‘give way’ within only a few years, which would be a horrendous step towards more rapid ice flow to the sea.

Bottom line: “West Antarctica could soon begin a multi-century decline that would add up to 10 feet to sea level. In the process, the rate of sea level would increase several fold, posing large challenges for people with a stake in coastal cities.” (Scambos)

But, when does the first foot of sea level register on shorelines? Nobody really knows for sure.

Meantime, as the world wonders aloud why and how the planet’s solidest long-standing ice sheet is ever closer to crumbling, it’s frankly disgusting and outrageous that it’s even an issue, especially considering decades of warnings by scientists about the risks of fossil fuels that spew CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, blanketing heat. Now, because of human recklessness in the face of warning after warning, an ominous horrific cycle of meltdown has already started at the worst possible location on the planet where 150-to-200 feet of water has remained frozen in time throughout all of human history… until now.

Forthwith, it’s payback time after decades of human stupidity bordering on lunacy in the face of science that has been right all along. Smart people know to adhere to the science.

Recommended reading: “How Trump Damaged Science – and Why it Could Take Decades to Recover”, Nature, October 5, 2020.FacebookTwitterReddit

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Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

Fighting the First UK-Rwandan Refugee Flight

by Binoy Kampmark / June 10th, 2022

June 10 bore witness to a valiant effort on the part of refugee groups and a trade union to stop what promises to be the first journey of many as part of the UK-Rwanda plan.  Their attempt to seek an injunction failed to convince the High Court.  Next Tuesday, the first flight from the UK to Rwanda filled with asylum seekers will, unless the Court of Appeal rules otherwise, take off.  Some 31 people of Iraqi and Syrian background have been told they will be on board with one-way tickets.

The UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership, hammered out by the Home Secretary Priti Patel and her counterparts in Kigali, has one central purpose: to deter the arrival of asylum seekers by boat across the English Channel.  Its genesis lies in a range of sources, none more insidious than the Australian model of offshore processing.  At its core is a rejection of international refugee law and its obligations.  In its place is the sentiment of convenience, callousness and cruel stinginess.

This conduct is only appealing to the insecure and the smug.  In a piece by Sam Ashworth-Hayes, a former director of studies at the conservative Henry Jackson Society, we see the old nostalgic refrain that Britain is glorious, people want to travel there, but that, unfortunately, transport has become easier and cheaper in a world where refugee laws simply have not kept up.  Borders needed to be firmed; regulations tightened.  And praise be showered upon Rwanda, who can profit from the refugee industry and market model so maligned by Patel.   The plan had to “surely rank as among the most generous development aid schemes ever devised.”  Apart, of course, for those unfortunates seeking asylum.

The policy has irked a goodly number, and not just the steadfastly committed campaigners.  The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, has made mutterings about it, expressing the view that the “whole approach is appalling.”  Admittedly, this revelation was spilled by an anonymous source to the Daily Mail and Times.  When asked for comment from Clarence House, a spokesperson said that: “We would not comment on supposed anonymous private conversations with the Prince of Wales, except to restate that he remains politically neutral.  Matters of policy are decisions for the government.”

Multinationals, on even more slippery ground, have also taken issue with the policy.  Ben and Jerry’s took to Twitter to stormily urge “folks” to “talk about Priti Patel’s ‘ugly’ Rwanda plan and what this means.”  The dispenser of ice cream products took issue with the UK’s “plan to forcibly send people to a country thousands of miles away, simply for seeking refuge in the UK” as “cruel and morally bankrupt.”

In the High Court, various arguments by the legal team representing the charities Detention Action, Care4Calais and the PCS Union were made hoping to block the first flight scheduled to leave on June 14, calling the plan unsafe and irrational.  According to the court submission from Raza Hussain, the barrister representing the three groups, Patel’s “assessment … that the UNHCR [Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees] is giving this plan a green light is a false claim.”

Government lawyer Mathew Gullick countered the criticisms of the UK-Rwandan arrangement.  They were “backward-looking” and did not genuinely take into account the way migrants were to be treated.  Deterring illegal immigration was a matter of “important public interest”.

Husain’s point was confirmed by a last minute intervention from the UNHCR, which argued in its submission to the court that the UK-Rwanda scheme failed to meet the standards of “legality and appropriateness” in terms of transferring asylum seekers from one state to another.  Laura Dubinsky, QC, representing the UNHCR, told the court that the agency believed there were “risks of serious irreparable harm to refugees” inherent in this “unlawful” plan.  The UK Home Office has peddled “inaccuracies” in claiming that the agency endorsed the scheme.

The court document from the UNHCR revealed “serious concerns that asylum seekers transferred from the UK to Rwanda will not have access to fair and efficient procedures for the determination of refugee status, with consequent risks of refoulement.”

Refoulement, a term Patel breezily buries when considering asylum seeker claims, remains a canonical precept of refugee law outlined in Article 33 of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.  Contracting states have an obligation not to “expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in a manner whatsoever to the frontiers or territories where his [or her] life or freedom would be threatened on account of his [or her] race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

In the agency’s view, there was also a grave risk “that the burden of processing the asylum claims of new arrivals from the UK could further overstretch the capacity of the Rwanda national asylum system, thereby undermining its ability to provide protection for all those who seek asylum.”

The UNHCR was being fleet footed in avoiding any description of Kigali’s less than impressive record on refugees and human rights.  In its 2022 report on Rwanda, Human Rights Watch noted the iron hand of the Rwandan Patriotic Front in stifling dissent and criticism, the detention and disappearing of opposition members and critics, the liberal use of torture, arbitrary detention and a scanty observance of the rule of law.

Disturbingly enough, Rwanda has produced its own refugees and asylum seekers, who continue being threatened, harassed and, in some instances, “forcibly disappeared and returned to Rwanda, or killed.”

None of the arguments were enough to convince Judge Jonathan Swift in his June 10 decision to reject the application to block the removal of the asylum seekers.  There was a “material public interest in the Home Secretary (Priti Patel) being able to implement immigration decisions.”

Resorting to that ancient method of reasoning when faced with a tight conundrum, Judge Swift could only dismiss the concerns voiced by the applicants as insignificant or lying “in the realms of speculation”.  In their submission to the Court of Appeal, and in the fuller judicial review of the plan to take place later in the month, the appellants have much to prove otherwise.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

 

What do you REALLY know about student loan forgiveness?

(As always, most news is fake news)

by Mickey Z. / June 10th, 2022

The debate [sic] related to student loan forgiveness is almost always based on media lies and carved-in-stone ideological identities. For example, if you see yourself as left or liberal, you salivate each time Bernie Sanders evokes the specter of 100 percent forgiveness. Conservatives reflexively grumble about “big government” and/or “work ethic” without doing any real investigation.

Hey, who needs facts when we have our [sic] manufactured opinions?

As is my style, I’m here to fill in a few of the blanks. Once again, the goal is not to change your mind. I’m just trying to increase the likelihood of having discussions founded on accuracy.

How Big is the Problem?

Never would I downplay the holistic stress of being in debt. I get it. But, for this specific issue: 18 percent of borrowers owe less than $5,000 in student loan debt. Only 6 percent of those with student debt owe more than $100,000. They make up one-third of the outstanding $1.5 trillion of debt.

It’s a problem, sure, but what about all those with medical debt or mortgages or credit card debt accrued due to the conscious destruction of our economy over the past two years?

For context:

• Student debt has risen in the U.S. for two main reasons: more people attend college now than ever before and college tuition has increased by 169 percent since 1980. As a result, about 14 percent of all American adults report they have outstanding undergraduate student debt.
• Although the total is much lower than student debt, roughly 50 percent of Americans carry medical debt
• 43 million U.S. borrowers owe nearly $1.6 trillion altogether in federal student loans
• The total home mortgage debt is about (wait for it) $10 trillion

Who decides which issues make headlines and which issues get buried by algorithms? .

Who Pays For This Gesture? 

Fourteen percent of Americans carry student loan debt. Then there’s the top 5 percent that pays ZERO taxes. That leaves about 80 percent of Americans to foot the bill while also trying to manage their finances and do more than “just get by.”

Translation: Lower- and middle-class taxpayers will bear the brunt of the student loan forgiveness stunt. Sure, it’s better than paying taxes to fund arms shipments to Neo-Nazi transhumanists in Ukraine but we don’t get to make that choice. Plus, why should we be forced to pay for either?

Side note: People who have already paid off their student debt would now be helping to pay off the student debt of others who didn’t. Where’s the “social justice” in that?

Who Does It Help?

The yearly median income of households with student loans is $76,400. Remind me: Why is this the issue that “progressives” swoon over?

Food stamps serve households with a median income of about $19,000 a year. Half of the recipients live below the poverty but the government only provides $2,300 annually for the average household.

Even if student debt forgiveness was capped at $50,000, that would send an average of $26,000 to eligible households. Meanwhile, families on food stamps would need 11 years to receive that much support. Where’s the #woke crowd on this issue?

Another group that will be helped by student loan forgiveness is colleges and universities. They can raise tuition even more now because they know the taxpayers will assume the financial burden through higher taxes. You might even call it the Academic-Industrial Complex.

This dynamic will result in fewer students being able to go to college in the future and if they try, the debt burden returns so the cycle can start again.

Why Does This Make No Sense?

It made no sense when mom-and-pop stores were shuttered while Target and Wal-Mart stayed open in 2020. It made no sense when you had to wear a mask to enter a restaurant but could take it off once you sat down.

I could go on but remember: It all makes sense to the powers that (shouldn’t) be. Everything being pushed on us is another step toward the Great Reset and other World Economic Forum goals.

In a nutshell: Their goal is to forgive all debt (especially their own, of course) and force us into a digital, cashless, social credit society in which we “own nothing” but “will be happy.”

So, please stop delegating all your energy to media-generated “debates” like student debt, guns, abortion, etc. Use some of that time to instead focus on self-education. Then, armed with knowledge, connect with others who are also dedicated to stopping the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

But if you really, really can’t stop yourself from posting about how you do or don’t support student loan forgiveness, can you please at least do a little homework to understand the damn issue? (Scroll up and re-read, for starters.)FacebookTwitterReddit

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Mickey Z. is the creator of a podcast called Post-Woke. You can subscribe here. He is also the founder of Helping Homeless Women - NYC, offering direct relief to women on New York City streets. Spread the word. Read other articles by Mickey.

Julian Assange: Does Wikileaks founder have a powerful ally in new Australian PM?

By Tiffanie Turnbull
BBC News, Sydney

11/06/22

After more than a decade spent trying to avoid extradition from the UK, Julian Assange is running out of time and options.

But with the election of a new government in his native Australia last month, his supporters hope he has a new, powerful ally.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously spoken against Mr Assange's incarceration, and the activist's family are counting on him to put pressure on the UK as the deadline for a critical deportation decision looms.

The Wikileaks founder is wanted in the US over classified documents leaked in 2010 and 2011, which it says broke the law and endangered lives.

But Mr Assange's supporters say the reports exposed US wrongdoing in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and were in the public interest.

After a long legal battle in the UK, the courts in April referred the US extradition request to the Home Secretary for her final decision.

Priti Patel has until 19 June - exactly 10 years since Mr Assange was last free - to make it.

"At this point, until Priti Patel signs off, it is entirely political. And so it's open to a political solution," says Mr Assange's brother, Gabriel Shipton.

So what - if anything - can Australia do?

Mr Albanese - a signatory to the Bring Julian Assange Home Campaign petition - last year said the 50-year-old should be freed.

"Enough is enough," he said at a party room meeting.

"I don't have sympathy for many of his actions but essentially I can't see what is served by keeping him incarcerated."

Anthony Albanese has previously spoken in support of Mr Assange's release

But since taking office Mr Albanese has been coy on what action his government will take on the matter.

When asked about Mr Assange at a press conference last week, he said "not all foreign affairs is best done with the loud hailer".

The comment has buoyed Mr Assange's family, with Mr Shipton saying it represents a huge shift from the position of previous governments.

"[They] have always said 'Julian is receiving consular assistance' and said things like 'this as a matter of for the UK courts and the government cannot interfere'."

"[They] have become complicit in Julian's persecution and imprisonment by sitting on their hands."

He says the family is finally confident Australia is having conversations "behind closed doors", which they hope could be pivotal.

Gabriel Shipton (right) has advocated for Mr Assange's release alongside his father John Shipton

Donald Rothwell, a professor of international law, agrees the Albanese government's election presents a "reset" opportunity and says any intervention could have sway.

Though there has been little transparency, Australia's previous government seemingly did not seek to raise the matter at a high level, he says.

It's a particularly sensitive problem as it involves two of Australia's closest allies and - as the previous government often pointed out - it is a legal matter.

"To degree, they're right," says Prof Rothwell, from Australian National University.

"That doesn't mean to say that - at this very pointy end - the Australian government is not able to start to make political representations."

Mr Albanese is seen as likely to quietly appeal to both the UK and US through diplomatic channels.

"There was some speculation that the Biden presidency could see the government take a different view on Assange," Prof Rothwell says.

"There's really been no indication. But it needs to be understood that the power to halt this matter clearly rests with President Biden. The US could end it tomorrow."

UK precedent to deny request

In 2000 the UK decided that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet should not be extradited to Spain to face charges over human rights violations on health grounds.

So regardless of any Australian pressure "there is a significant precedent in another very, very high profile matter," Prof Rothwell says.

And in 2012, the UK refused a US extradition request for British computer hacker Gary McKinnon, judging it to be "incompatible with his human rights".

"He had similar depression and Asperger's syndrome as Julian and Theresa May rejected that extradition because the care that he needed he would not be able to get in the US prison system," Mr Shipton says.


Protestors across the world have called for the UK Home Secretary to deny the extradition request

But the expectation of Mr Assange's legal team is that Ms Patel will sign off on the extradition order anyway, he adds.

Mr Assange is still able to appeal to the High Court and raise his case at the European Court of Human Rights.

Legal battle already spans a decade

In 2012 Mr Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearing US prosecution.

But after seven years confined to the embassy, he was removed and arrested in 2019 after Ecuador withdrew his asylum status - citing alleged bad behaviour.

He has since been held in London's Belmarsh Prison, where his health has deteriorated. His legal team argues he will die if he's sent to the US.

Assange arrest anniversary prompts London protests

Julian Assange: Campaigner or attention seeker?

In January 2021, a judge sided with Mr Assange's team, ruling he could not be extradited because there was no guarantee that American authorities could look after him.

The High Court then reversed that decision last December, saying that the US had since provided sufficient assurances that Mr Assange could be safely cared for.

Mr Assange faces a possible jail term of up to 175 years in the US, his lawyers have said.

However the US government told the High Court the sentence was more likely to be between four and six years - and it would even consider sending him to an Australian jail.

'Threat to democracy'

Mr Shipton argues much is at stake - including global press freedoms.

Mr Assange's supporters say he is a publisher and a journalist and his extradition would have a chilling effect.

"People should be able to expose war crimes, they should be able to publish about government corruption or torture.

"Julian's prosecution means that… journalists can't do their job, and that's a threat to democracy."

Speaking about his brother, he adds: "This endless Snakes and Ladders legal situation takes its toll on him. It's punishment by process.

"This man is suffering."

Watch: The background to Julian Assange's extradition case

Shamans predict Peru to reach 2022 World Cup

MALAYSIA
Ex-Bar chiefs call for full details of mandatory death penalty repeal, formalised by tabling of Bill

Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, in welcoming the move to abolish the mandatory death penalty, said ‘the devil is in the details’. — File picture by Ham Abu Bakar

By R. Loheswar
Saturday, 11 Jun 2022 

KUALA LUMPUR, June 11 — Lauding the government’s move to abolish the mandatory death penalty, two ex-Bar Council presidents said they want to see the details of the proposed amendments and hope the Bill to amend related laws are presented in Parliament with full transparency.

Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan and Ragunath Kesavan said yesterday's announcement was an important first step. but it does not mean the death penalty has been abolished totally and they would like to see what amendments were proposed in detail in Parliament.

Ragunath Kesavan described as 'excellent', the move to abolish the mandatory death penalty. — File picture by Ham Abu Bakar

"The ideal position is to abolish the death penalty altogether but this is an important first step,” Ambiga told Malay Mail.

"Of course, the devil is in the details and I would like to see the actual bills and to see the actual amendments."

Ragunath when contacted was ecstatic at the news and said he is optimistic that the laws would be passed given the government's commitment to it.

"Excellent move. A huge step forward for a more humane criminal justice system in Malaysia. It puts back the discretion in the judiciary to decide on the punishment.

"The other proposed reforms are very progressive and welcomed. This is the commitment given by the government. A clear indication of intent and willingness to commit to reforms,” he said.

For years local NGOs and human rights groups have called for the mandatory death penalty to be abolished as there have been countless drug mules and innocent people duped into trafficking drugs.

They have no choice but to face the gallows once sentenced and many of the accused families did not know how to get clemency.

In August 2019, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration formed the Special Committee to Review Alternative Punishments to the Mandatory Death Penalty to examine alternatives to the mandatory death sentence.

The PH government collapsed in February 2020, however, before the Bill for the abolition of the death penalty could be tabled in the March meeting of Parliament that year.

At the time, de facto law minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said that before the government decides on any amendments, it needed to determine the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent to crime while also looking at alternative punishments.

Yesterday, Wan Junaidi announced that the government has agreed to abolish the mandatory death penalty and substitute sentence at the discretion of the court.

In explaining the move to abolish the mandatory death penalty Wan Junaidi said they needed to ensure the relevant laws took into account the principles of proportionality and constitutionality in terms of the crime committed.

Goh Cia Yee, a criminal lawyer with the Young Lawyers Movement also welcomed the move adding that sentencing guidelines should be offence specific and must be subject to review.

"The discretion should not be limited by a set of circumstances as in the current 39B provision. The court should be allowed to exercise its discretion fully with the guidance of common law in choosing the appropriate sentence,” Goh told Malay Mail.

"Rather than stating the circumstances in the provision itself, a better approach would be to have sentencing guidelines that may suggest factors to consider in the determination of whether the death sentence should be met or not.

"The sentencing guideline should be offence specific and subject to proper review from time to time by the sentencing council,” he said.

Lawyer and The Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) vice-president Lim Wei Jiet said the move was a long time coming and will distance the country from the status quo of sentencing someone to death automatically for drug offences whether they deserve it or not — which he said is a thing of the past.

"Moving forward I hope the prime minister will immediately table the amendments to all legislations relevant to this matter to make sure this mandatory death penalty is taken out from out books.

"The next thing we need is a moratorium on all executions for those convicted under the death penalty pending these amendments,” Lim said when contacted.

Following Wan Junaidi's announcement, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob explained that the death penalty will remain and not be abolished, and the change is only on the fact that judges are now given discretion in sentencing.

Wan Junaidi had said the Cabinet had also agreed for a further study to be carried out on the proposed substitute sentences for 11 offences carrying the mandatory death penalty, one of which is under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.

He also said the government has yet to set a timeframe for the abolition of the mandatory death penalty to take effect with many areas needing refining, including the proposal to set up a tribunal to study cases already served with the mandatory death sentence.

After announcement of repeal, PM says death penalty still remains but judges given discretion in sentencing

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob speaks during the Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli Association’s (POASM) annual general meeting in Bera June 10, 2022. — Bernama pic

Friday, 10 Jun 2022 

BERA, June 10 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob today explained that the death penalty will remain and not be abolished, and the change is only on the fact that judges are now given discretion in sentencing.

He said this in response to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar’s statement earlier that the government had agreed to abolish the mandatory death penalty and to substitute it with other sentences which are subject to the discretion of the court.

Ismail Sabri said with the decision, the “mandatory” part will be removed and judges will no longer be bound by the word (mandatory) which had left them with no choice but to impose the death penalty on criminal offenders as provided by law, such as in drug trafficking cases.

“We are of the view that everyone deserves a second chance. If there are two options (of sentences), and if the offender is found to be a hardcore drug trafficker to the extent of causing hundreds of thousands of people to die (due to drugs), he can be sentenced to death and allowed to be sent to the gallows.

“However, if the judge, in his discretion, felt that the offender should be given a second chance and decided to sentence him to life imprisonment with whipping, he can substitute the mandatory death penalty with that life sentence,” he said.

Ismail Sabri was met after officiating the Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli Association’s annual general meeting here today.

Ismail Sabri said Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, for example, provides for a mandatory death penalty upon conviction, which left the judge with no choice but to impose the death penalty even though there may be several factors that can be taken into consideration.

“Sometimes, the case involved an 18-year-old. The judge may find him ‘trapped’ as drugs were found in his bag but he could not prove that they belonged to somebody else, and the court had to send him to the gallows even though the judge felt that the accused was just a young man who should be given a second chance to change.

“We have to understand that the death penalty is not abolished and will remain, it’s just that it will no longer be mandatory,” he said.

Ismail Sabri added that although the government agreed in principle to abolish the implementation of the mandatory death penalty, the matter still needed to be scrutinised. — Bernama

New study estimates 1.6 million in the US identify as transgender

The study estimates that about 0.5 per cent of all US adults, some 1.3 million people, and about 1.4 per cent, or 300,000, of youth between 13- and 17-years-old identify as transgender, having a different gender identity than the sex they were assigned at birth. ― AFP pic

Saturday, 11 Jun 2022 

WASHINGTON, June 11 ― A study published yesterday estimates that nearly 1.64 million people over the age of 13 in the United States identify themselves as transgender, based on an analysis of newly expanded federal health surveys.

The study estimates that about 0.5 per cent of all US adults, some 1.3 million people, and about 1.4 per cent, or 300,000, of youth between 13- and 17-years-old identify as transgender, having a different gender identity than the sex they were assigned at birth.

The analysis was done by researchers at the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA's Law School focused on gender identity public policy, and concluded that the percentage and number of adults who identify as transgender had “remained steady” since the institute last made estimates in reports in 2016 and 2017.

“This report shows trans people live everywhere and their needs and concerns need to be listened to and be addressed in the public policy landscape,” Jody L. Herman, one of the study's authors, said in an interview.

The researchers used data collected between 2017 and 2020 from two different kinds of surveys done by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Jae Sevelius, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study, called it the best population estimate yet using “the best available data that we have currently to make these estimates.”

“That being said, even the best available data is not great,” Sevelius said, adding that the findings of the new study, which was not peer-reviewed, aligns with earlier estimates.

Sevelius and a colleague conducted a peer-reviewed meta-analysis published in 2017 in the American Journal of Public Health that found nearly 1 million US adults were transgender, based on more limited data than in the Williams Institute study. They called it a conservative estimate and concluded in their paper that future surveys would likely find higher numbers of transgender people.

The Williams Institute researchers and Sevelius noted the CDC data has limitations. For example, in 2017 the CDC introduced an optional set of questions about gender identity in its Youth Risk Behavior Survey for high school students, but only 15 states have used those questions, the Williams Institute study said.

Also, the language used in some survey questions is not ideal, Sevelius said: For example, some CDC questions ask transgender respondents if they consider themselves “male-to-female” or “female-to-male,” terminology some trans people reject.

“It's using a very crude tool to measure something that's extremely nuanced, especially for youth,” Sevelius said. ― Reuters

CLIMATE CHANGE SILVER LINING
Mystery over Italian climber's death in Himalayas solved as boot emerges from glacier 50 years later

10 Jun, 2022 


Nanga Parbat is the ninth-highest mountain on Earth, at 8126m high. Photo/ Getty Images
Daily Telegraph UK
By Nick Squires


The discovery of a climber's boot that lay entombed in a Himalayan glacier for more than 50 years has laid to rest, once and for all, one of the most enduring controversies in the world of mountaineering.

The leather boot belonged to Guenther Messner, a young Italian climber who died on the ice-shrouded slopes of 8126m-high (26,660ft) Nanga Parbat in Pakistan in 1970.

He was the brother of Reinhold Messner, who went on to become one of the world's most celebrated alpinists and became the first person to climb Mt Everest without additional oxygen.

For decades there was speculation and rumour that Reinhold left his less-experienced brother to die on the mountain in a selfish push to win glory for himself by reaching the summit.

Two of the climbers on the expedition, Hans Saler and Max von Kienlin, wrote books in which they claimed Reinhold was so obsessed with conquering Nanga Parbat he abandoned his frostbitten and delirious brother.

Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner points to a photograph of Mount Everest after his unprecedented solo ascent without supplementary oxygen, 1980. Photo / Getty Images

Reinhold always denied the accusations, saying the pair had reached the summit of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest peak in the world, only for his 23-year-old brother to be tragically swept away in an avalanche during the descent.

Reinhold barely escaped with his life, staggering down the mountain, wandering for six days until he was rescued and losing several toes to frostbite.

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Now, 52 years on, the location of the boot appears to corroborate his insistence he did not abandon his younger brother.

The boot was found by local people at the foot of the mountain's western Diamir face – exactly where Reinhold said his brother had been swept to his death.

A photograph of the boot was posted by Reinhold Messner on Instagram, where he has more than 170,000 followers.

"This is further proof that I did not abandon Günther," he told Corriere della Sera newspaper. "People said I left him to die, sacrificing him for my own ambition. I'm at peace with myself, even if the accident changed my life."
Reinhold Messner is seen at the special exhibition at Messner Mountain Museum on July 15, 2020 in Bolzano, Italy. Photo / Getty Images

He recalled that bones belonging to his brother had been found in the same area in 2005, along with his other boot.

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DNA analysis by Austrian experts showed the bones belonged to Günther Messner.

"The remains were found on the slope which I had always said was the place where I saw him disappear."

There was no doubting the recently discovered boot also belonged to his brother because it had been specially made for the expedition, he said.

The discovery offered final vindication of his account of what happened to his brother on the frozen flanks of Nanga Parbat more than half a century ago, he said.

In a book he wrote in 2003, The Naked Mountain, Reinhold said as they descended the mountain, his brother was suffering from altitude sickness. He said after they became separated he made desperate attempts to locate Günther, but to no avail.

"The mountain never lies and, if there was still the need, the discovery of this boot definitively establishes the truth of my brother's death. This is incontrovertible proof that Günther disappeared during the descent, not during the ascent."

The unearthed boot belonged to Guenther Messner, who died on the slopes of Nanga Parbat in 1970. Photo / Instagram

He now wants the boot sent back to Italy, where it will go on display in one of the Messner Mountain Museums that he has established in his native South Tyrol, the German-speaking corner of northern Italy.

The fact he survived the treacherous conditions that carried away his brother was a miracle, he said.

"When they found me down in the valley I hadn't eaten for six days and I weighed 56kg. I cheated death."

A legend in the climbing community, Reinhold Messner was the first person to scale all 14 of the world's peaks that exceed 8000m (26,250 feet) in height.

A former member of the European Parliament, where he championed environmental issues, he has traversed Antarctica on foot via the South Pole and trekked solo across the Gobi Desert.

Smithfield Foods to shutter California meat-packing plant


VERNON, Calif. (AP) — Meat-packing giant Smithfield Foods said Friday it will close its only California plant next year, citing the escalating cost of doing business in the state.

The Farmer John meat-packing plant in Vernon, an industrial suburb south of Los Angeles, will shut down in February, with its 1,800 employees receiving severance and job placement support along with bonuses for those who choose to stay on the job until the closure, said Jim Monroe, vice president of corporate affairs.

Some workers, who on average earn about $21 per hour, also will have opportunities to relocate to other facilities owned by the Virginia-based Smithfield Foods Inc.

The Vernon plant slaughters pigs and packages products such as ham and bacon. Some operations will be moved to other facilities in the Midwest, but the overall reduction in processing capacity is prompting Smithfield to reduce its sow herd in Utah. The company also said it is exploring ways to exit its farms in California and Arizona.

Monroe said operating costs in California are much higher than in other areas of the country, including taxes and the price of water, electricity and natural gas.

“Our utility costs in California are 3 1/2 times higher per head than our other locations where they do the same type of work,” he said.

The shutdown is not expected to reduce supply or increase costs on products, and Farmer John Products will still be sold in California, Monroe said.

“There won’t be any impact on our customers,” he said.

The Vernon plant has been the target of repeated protests by animal rights activists over its treatment of hogs. It also was hard-hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, with some 300 employees exposed to infections in 2020. Several were hospitalized.

California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health fined Smithfield Foods about $60,000 for safety violations that exposed workers to infection.

Smithfield Foods was founded in Smithfield, Virginia, in 1936 and according to its website provides more than 40,000 jobs in the United States. It was acquired in 2013 by Hong Kong-based WH Group.

Washington Post promotes Trump’s other “big lie”: The Wuhan Lab theory

Andre Damon@Andre__Damon
WSWS.ORG

On Thursday, the Senate held a public hearing documenting how former president Donald Trump used his “big lie” about the 2020 election to justify an attempted fascist coup, aiming to abolish the peaceful transfer of power and turn the United States into a dictatorship.

But that same day, the Washington Postpublished an editorial promoting Trump’s other big lie: the claim that COVID-19 is a man-made virus created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

 

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro (right) called COVID-19 a "weaponized virus" that created by the Chinese Communist Party. Trump repeatedly called COVID-19 Kung-Flu and the China virus.

 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Post promotes the “hypothesis” that “the infection might have resulted from a laboratory accident or an inadvertent spill connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” It adds, “At the time, the WIV was carrying out experiments using genetically modified viruses similar to the pandemic strain.”

The Post frames its promotion of Trump’s racist effort to blame China for the COVID-19 pandemic as a declaration that “two broad hypotheses have arisen about how the virus first infected humans in Wuhan in late 2019.”

This is like saying that there are “two broad hypotheses” about the validity of the 2020 presidential election results. No, there are not. There is the truth, and there is a right-wing conspiracy theory.

Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen had no evidence to support it and was a transparent falsification. It does not require forensic examinations of voting machines, polling booths, or electoral records. Any politician or journalist who gives the slightest credence to this claim is a fascist sympathizer.

Trump’s election lie was concocted by Trump advisers Stephen K. Bannon, Peter Navarro, Jason Miller, and their co-conspirators, organized around Bannon’s Podcast, “War Room: Pandemic.” On January 5, the day before Trump’s coup attempt, Bannon declared, “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”

Bannon’s podcast was, however, created to promote a different lie. On January 25, 2020, Bannon rebranded his “War Room: Impeachment” podcast to focus on the claim that China had created COVID-19 as a biological weapon to attack the United States. He called it “War Room: Pandemic,” which is its name to this day.

In the photo above, published by CNN, Wang DingGang, who appears to have originated the claim that COVID-19 was a man-made virus, is pictured with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, as Bannon is shown in the background. Li-Meng Yan, a lab leak advocate who Bannon claimed was a 'Whistleblower,' Is reflected in a mirror. Credit: CNN

In the first episode of the podcast, taped on January 25, Bannon invited Washington Times columnist Bill Gertz to speak about an upcoming article (of which Bannon had advanced knowledge) asserting that “Coronavirus may have originated in lab linked to China’s biowarfare program.”

Days earlier, Bannon’s business partner and collaborator, the Chinese expatriate Miles Guo, published an article asserting that “the real source of the coronavirus is from ‘a lab in Wuhan’ linked to its covert biological weapons programs.”

Trump, Navarro and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would all promote the claim that COVID-19 was a biological weapon created by the Chinese Communist Party. Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger would promote a variant of the lie claiming that COVID-19 was released by accident.

This conspiracy theory would be embraced by the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, as well as leading columnists for the New York Times.

In the midst of this right-wing firestorm, led by the fascist gutter press (Breitbart, the National Pulse, Newsmax, OAN) and supported by the “mainstream media,” the World Health Organization published its interim report on the origins of COVID-19 in March, 2021.

The report dismissed out of hand the claim that COVID-19 was developed as a biological weapon, concluding that this “has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome.”

It declared the possibility that COVID-19 spilled over to humans from a lab leak as “extremely unlikely,” declaring, “There is no record of viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 in any laboratory before December 2019, or genomes that in combination could provide a SARS-CoV-2 genome.”

Most critically of all, the report did not recommend further inquiries into the potential laboratory origins of COVID-19, cutting across the efforts of warmongers, xenophobes and demagogues of both parties to turn the scientific investigation into the origins of COVID-19 into a witch-finding expedition that could be used to accuse China of a cover-up.

America’s yellow press howled with indignation, with leading US newspapers condemning the findings and making personal attacks against committee member Peter Daszak, the most vocal opponent of the conspiracy theory within the scientific community.

Under relentless pressure from the US State Department, which officially endorses the conspiracy theory, the World Health Organization disbanded its committee into the origins of the disease and formed a new one: The Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO).

That group published its preliminary report Thursday. In the period between the reports, the evidence of zoonotic origins of COVID-19 has only grown, with the identification of coronaviruses that are extremely similar to COVID-19 in the wild, and more information tying the initial outbreak to the Huanan wet market, which carried out a significant trade in wild animals.

There has, at the same time, been no new evidence to indicate a laboratory origin of COVID-19, adding to the nonexistent prior evidence, bringing the total evidence supporting the conspiracy theory to zero.

Reflecting this reality, the SAGO report concludes, “At the present time, currently available epidemiological and sequencing data suggest ancestral strains to SARS-CoV-2 have a zoonotic origin with the closest genetically related viruses being beta coronaviruses, identified in Rhinolophus bats in China in 2013 (96.1%) and Laos in 2020 (96.8%).”

It adds, “there has not been any new data made available to evaluate the laboratory as a pathway of SARS-CoV-2 into the human population.”

But while recognizing that new scientific findings have worked to refute the conspiracy theory, the SAGO, under relentless political pressure by the United States, declared, it “remains important to consider… the possibility of the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into the human population through a laboratory incident.”

This assertion came despite the protests of three members of the Committee, who declared, “there is no new scientific evidence to question the conclusion of the WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part mission report published in March 2021.”

In other words, after the World Health Organization disbanded its team investigating the origins of COVID-19 under right-wing political pressure, removed all outspoken opponents of the conspiracy theory, and brought in figures sympathetic to the right-wing campaign, all the report could come up with was fundamentally the same conclusion as the earlier study: “At the present time, currently available epidemiological and sequencing data suggest ancestral strains to SARS-CoV-2 have a zoonotic origin.”

Commenting on the SAGO study, a source close to an earlier WHO-China joint study on the origins of COVID-19 observed, “even though they removed the alleged ‘conflicted’ members they still end up with the same conclusion!”

“The irony is, we had a window where China was supplying new data. The right wing pushed politically against the WHO team’s work, they disbanded the team, brought in a lab leak contingent, removed people who argued that there was no evidence and who were politically expedient and now have a report that is demanding lab info from China under a politically charged atmosphere, without any evidence to support that line of inquiry.”

The source added, “The Post piece simply adds to the politicization of this, and ironically will continue to keep the window closed for any real understanding of COVID origins.”

The Post’s promotion of the Wuhan Lab Lie is transparently political. Last month, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a major speech on US-China relations, “we will remain focused on the most serious long-term challenge to the international order—and that’s posed by the People’s Republic of China.”

He continued, “China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.... We will defend our interests against any threat.”

The efforts of the Post to promote the Wuhan Lab Lie are aimed at stoking xenophobic hatred of China to promote the military aims of the United States. They must be rejected with the contempt they deserve.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/06/world-health-experts-now-say-covid-lab.html